Jobs with MCSE or MCP Certification

[BlueVenus]

Hi All,

Looking to get some feedback from those with these certifications.

I was just at a "Career Night" at New Horizons in Akron. They are saying:

1. MCSE's start out at around $55K, and MCP at $45K. A+ around $38K.

2. These salaries are without a computer related college degree.

3. The industry trend is hire older people rather than younger due older people fitting better into the corporate culture.

4. There are more jobs than people to fill them.

5. They will take people with no experience.

I have scoured the adds in my area, and almost all require a college degree and experience.

I am considering going for one of these as I am comtemplating a career change..and the classes are not cheap...looking at around $6K to for the programs.

Does anyone have any comments that can help me make a decision?

BTW I won a "scholorship" at this event for a course to get N+ cerification...regular cost is $2K.


Thanks for any input.


-Blue

 

[dirtboy]

Those numbers probably aren't realistic. I'm not an expert on salary by any means. I don't know one person with an A+ making near that much. I picked mine up the other day and I don't quite make $38k. I've been doing network administration for 3 years now.

Those figures may be accurate only in large population bases with alot of big companies.

I can tell you, as you have found out, a degree is where it's at. Don't know why it's so important, I knew alot of degreed people who could barely figure out how to format a disk, yet they got the job and alot more then I.

 

[jinsonxu]

Sigh, society's like that. The Degree/Cert/Diploma dictates your salary.

 

[MulLa]

I totally agree dirtboy a degree is filled with unpractical crap! Recenly graduated from an engineering degree basically you have to re-learn how things are actually done in the real world as opposed to all those crap that they teach at univeristy

 

[Erasmus-X]

1. Marketing hype, most of the time. You're only gonna make that kind of money with some experience under your belt and preferrably a college degree. BTW, I've NEVER seen someone with just an A+ pull in $38k......that's just a little optimistic. All an A+ tells people is that you have the equivalent of 6 months PC repair/diagnostics experience. Bah.....anyone can get an A+ with about 2 months of studying, big deal. Here in AZ, most A+ certs have techie jobs that pull in maybe $12/hour.

2. All I can say here is MAYBE...

3. Sadly, this can be true because a lot of IT employers are very age-biased. They don't seem to think a 20-year old can do the job of say, a 35-year old.

4. This is somewhat true in AZ, but I don't know about anywhere else.

5. Now this is the thing that really bugs me. This is what every organization offering expensive certification classes will say. But if you actually scour the ads, you'll actually be disappointed to know if you want a job making anything near what these cert classes advertise, you need industry experience and perhaps a degree.

Now before you seriously think of investing in these programs, do you have a community college in your area? A lot of community colleges actually offer MCSE, Cisco, Novell, and A+ programs. They're a LOT cheaper than paying some "cram" corporation $6k per course.

 

[Anibus]

#1...This figure is totaly false. It is based on a survey of IT professionals with MCSE who Have a BA in comp sci or other major, and have work Experience already in the field. What the learning instution (New Horizons) is doing is pure marketing. An MCSE with no degree and no experience is not worth the paper the cert is printed on.

#2...Your resume will be tossed in the trash with only an MCSE, MCP, or A+. You need a college degree and experience to get an interview and your foot in the door.

#3...I find the opposite to be true. I have spoken to others Old and Young who are in the IT field and the majority feel it is easyer to land a job when you are younger.

#4...Their are many IT jobs out there but their are also a lot of skilled employees in the search for new employment. Most if not all Companys want previous experience. Not some one with no proven skills or experience.

#5...Highly unlikely

Certs are ok but are no replacement for a degree and experience.

If you are going to change careers and have no experience in the IT field you will have to start at the bottom and work your way up. A Certification can't hurt but it is in no way the magic bullet to a high paying IT position without additional qualifications.

 

[BlueVenus]

Your answers are pretty much as I expected.

If it make a difference, I do have a college degree in Psychology. I am currently an R&D manager with 20 years experience in developing diagnostic type tests for the clinical market. I make extensive use of imaging software for data analysis.

My particular area is waning, and my company's strategic direction is changing. Being into computers, run a small business the side doing custom builds, I was hoping there would be some chance to get a decent job with one of these certifications. But what you guys say makes sense, degrees and experience is everything.


-Blue

 

[The Wildcard]

Bluevenus: Sounds like a good oppurtunity and if you want to make some money NOW, well then i'd say go for it...be aware of what Anibus said though...

Anibus is correct. Without a college degree and several years of expiereince, some companies won't even look at you. Maybe it's different in Arizona, but in the Silicon Valley....i beg to differ.

And for all you people who say that college degrees are useless, i hope you say the exact same thing when they lay you off in a couple of years when all this economic boom begins to level off like it has begun to now.
why?

You have a CS major graduate, with a 4 year, well rounded education who has taken classes that deal with also, math, communication and technical writing skills. That gives him the ability to do a wide variety of jobs, and not just programming. At the basic, you can have a CS graduate write manuals or do tech support for programmers.

Then you have a guy with ONLY an MCSE certification degree and blew off college cuz he thought it was a waste of time. Sure he gets a job and life is going well. Earning lets say.....45-50k a year?

Then one day, his boss tells him that his company needs to trim down a bit. Who do you think they are gonna lay off? A CS graduate, who FOR MUCH LESS THAN 45K-50K can be trained to obtain an MCSE certification? OR a guy with only an MCSE certification who has not taken any programming classes, no math or communication or technical writing classes as well.

Now of course some of you might argue, that the company could send those MCSE employees to a couple of programming seminars. Hahah, and AT BEST, these employees would onlt have a BASIC knowledge of C++. Do you guys know the kind of programming a 4 year college student learns???? Hahah lemme tell you...much, much more than BASIC C++. I am talking about projects that deal with anything from computer graphics, to databases and networking and to even operating systems. I'd like to see somebody do that with a couple of seminars or maybe a " Teach yourself C++ in 24hrs " book.

 

[Valhalla2000]

WildCard is right

 

[frover2000]

Humm, Scary stuff, Good thing I didn't take the easy way out, and get some virtually useless certification. I'm gonna take a full blown College Course

 

[BlueVenus]

So, I guess there is no one here with these certifications.

This New Horizons has locations all over the US surely it cannot be totally useless or they would not be in business.

I do know one guy from my work who got a MCP and found a job locally starting at 40K, his college degree was in Biology.



-Blue

 

[hans007]

a friend of mine was working part time at a programming school called develop mentor. THey offered him $60k a year out of high school and he only had an MCP. I worked there during the big programming sessions at hotels sometimes to move stuff around. They really dont do much, he said they get paid just to play with computers and make sure they work on the LAN. His "supervisor" and him both did exactly the same thing, but he was getting $12 an hour, and his super visor made $60k. Then his supervisor got hired away by flashcom for $85k a year (guy had just high school diplmoa and MCSE) . I swear that guy was a total retard because we both knew way more than him even before my friend got his mcp. So since he left they offered him the job, but he went to college anyways. I think for the MCSE its probably realistic, maybe a little high, but the A+ cert is total BS. No way you can get that much. I used to work in a factory when i was 16 making systems for an OEM. We got $6.35 an hour repairing HP pavilions, and most of the guys had A+. Plus they were dumbasses, didnt even know what to do , like they were just following some step by step thing they memorized, most didnt know how to trouble shoot at all. A guy i knew just paid the $85 to take the a+ test, and passed, anyone who is on anandtech enough could pass if they brushed up on their dos batch file skills (i can see why this might still be important)

 

[bozack]

actually I am not certified in anything at all and I make close to 38, first job out of college too so I can see those numbers being valid, I think it all depends on where you live and "supply and demand"

here in dc there are an abundance of technology related positions but not enough people

 

[Buddha Bart]

For some bizzare reason there tends to be a lot of sh*tting on certs around here.

If you can get the MCSE, N+ and A+ plus your experience and psyc degree on one resume, I am certian you can get a decent (~$40Kish) job. I wouldn't even be slightly suprised if you pulled 50.

bart

 

[DarkRipper]

I have a computer degree (bachelor of science) and I am a MCP. I pull +50K a year, working in a large french power company IT department.

You can do it if you try.

BTW, I'm 29. Another thing that helped me was military experience. I did 8 years in the army, and the managers here are all retired officers or the equivalent.

DR

 

[ktchong]

Ph.D. still earns the most because I have seen many cases personally. I knew an immigrant from China who came over to California and spent five years in USC for a doctorate degree that was related to computing science. He did exceptionally well in school and was a full-scholarship student. When he got his Ph.D., he was 32 or 33, didn't have a whole lot of real-world working experience in this country and couldn't speak English really well, but he got a job that paid six-digit starting salary, a company car (a BMW convertible!), stock options, along with a company-sponsored green card. That was during the dot-com boom so he was fortunate.

Because of this guy, I've been planning to go back to school to get a graduate degree.